Tantalizing Tales — July 2026 — Part One

Happy July, dear readers! If you’re in an area affected by high heat, I sincerely hope you have every opportunity to stay cool, especially with a good book or five to keep you company.

And as always, I have suggestions, including the recently published Pasha The Storm by the fabulous Lin Codega. If you’re not quite ready to see the end of Pride Month, then this queer swashbuckling adventure is definitely the book for you!

Bold, bawdy Pasha was once the most infamous pirate to sail the sister oceans. Now she’s in exile and worse: beholden to the irritatingly attractive Minister Atle, who’s plotting treason against the powerful Queen Thivaldis of Garda. The queen has built a navy fueled by necromancy, with aims of expanding her territories using whatever means necessary. Atle is determined to stop her, and believes that Pasha is the perfect pirate to steer the fleet’s stolen flagship into the mouth of a monstrous, legendary whale — an act which will hopefully cripple the queen’s efforts significantly.

But gods and ghosts stand in the way of Pasha, Atle and their crew. With the Queen of Garda in hot pursuit, will they be able to put an end to her dark dreams of empire without becoming sacrifices to her deathly magic themselves?

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Next up is the latest in a murder mystery series that I adore! Robert Thorogood’s The Mysterious Affair Of Judith Potts continues the adventures of the Marlow Murder Club, as someone begins killing celebrities in our heroines’ riverside English town.

The mysterious death of a famous football player would be headline news enough, even if it weren’t so swiftly followed by the shocking murder of a bestselling thriller writer. Judith, Becks and Suzie — the founding members of the MMC — are on the case, and quickly find themselves untangling a complex web of blackmail and scandal.

Hampering their efforts is the recent suspension of their ally and unofficial member of the MMC, the embattled Detective Inspector Tanika Malik. Even more alarming is the resurfacing of secrets from sprightly octogenarian Judith’s past. Will the women be able to get to the bottom of the intrigue plaguing their small town and bring a devious killer to justice, or will their crime-solving days face a sudden and premature end?

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Our next selection is a fascinating literary thriller, as Afsheen Farhadi debuts with False Prophet.

From the publicity materials:

“Actor Jal Persad is enjoying moderate “where do I know you from?” success when the death of his mother, Rita, sends him into a tailspin he hadn’t seen coming—after all, how could he grieve a woman he barely knew? Rita had grown up in Guyana during the rise and fall of the Jonestown cult, but never spoke of her home to Jal, always keeping him at a distance.

“After months of avoiding work, a misunderstanding at lunch with his manager leads Jal into a web of lies. He soon finds himself writing a memoir of his mother’s adolescence, one that places her in direct contact with Jim Jones himself. There’s just one issue–Rita never met the man, and Jal knows that. Suddenly, the book goes viral, and Jal must face the looming threat of exposure, and his own guilt.

“Alternating between Jal’s rapid rise and Rita’s distorted story, False Prophet confronts the intergenerational legacy of colonialism, the allure of power, and the age-old question–how much of yourself are you willing to lose to succeed?”

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Aisha Saeed is one of those authors I know I need to carve out more time for. I high key loved her middle grade novel Hafsa’s Way, and only scheduling pressures have kept me from reading more than the first chapter of her prior romantic thriller for adults, The Matchmaker. So I’m super excited to see that she has another intriguing book out, even as I’m chagrined at not having enough time yet to dive into it.

The Wedding Week revolves around Hena Mirza, who fled Florida after her intended disappeared on their wedding day. Rumors swirled that she was somehow responsible, and a hurt and humiliated Hena hasn’t seen her family since.

Three years later and her little sister Lulu calls with shocking news. Not only is Lulu getting married — in 48 hours! — but their mom is dying, too. Hena flies home, hoping to stay under the radar while saying goodbye, but Lulu’s eight-day desi wedding has eerie echoes of her own, including increasingly strange incidents that point to sabotage. Will Hena be able to figure out who’s trying to ruin her sister’s wedding and what, if anything, that has to do with her own ruined celebrations, even as others are whispering that she’s a murderer herself?

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Another disappearance lies at the heart of Kelsey Cox’s Pretty Dead Things as four women gather in the South for another opulent occasion: a Texas beauty pageant.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, beautiful young Isabelle Whitmore disappeared from a small Texas town, leaving no trace. Twenty-five years later, her sister Ingrid returns to Anhalt, Texas, looking for answers as the annual Lone Star Princess Pageant revs up once more.

Ingrid isn’t our only narrator in this twisty, multiple POV mystery. There’s also the newly sober Cat, whose daughter is participating in the pageant, as well as her friend Melanie, whose own history with the event has been less than great. Finally, there’s Sarah Lynn, the latest in a long line of pageant winners who know that losing is not an option.

When an unexpected snowstorm traps the pageant-goers under one roof without power, tensions explode. Scores will be settled, and not everyone will survive.

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Finally, we have a slightly less murderous and more lighthearted Young Adult spy thriller in Emily Lloyd-Jones’ Augusta Pine Does Not Exist.

Three years ago, our teenage narrator ran a hack that resulted in someone’s death. Faced with the prospect of going to jail for murder, she decided to sign up with the Identity Security Division instead, leaving behind her old life and adopting a new identity as one of the division’s secret operatives. Her only friends now are her handler and a snarky AI spybot.

When the recently renamed Augusta Pine is assigned to Portland for a mission, she leaps at the chance to check in on her beloved grandmother, renting the apartment next door in an attempt to watch her grandma from a distance. Her plans are turned upside down however when a group of cyberterrorists hacks the building and holds the residents hostage. They’re not afraid to kill to get what they want, forcing Augusta to figure out how to outsmart them and get everyone else out alive.

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All of these books are either available or available for pre-order now, so let me know if you’re able to get to them before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!